View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the narrator say his sister Lisa wouldn't know "if he crawled into her lap with a fistful of daisies"?

2. Where is the author's father's second hiding place?

3. What does the author say he wanted a home with, as opposed to a fence?

4. What has happened to the narrator's sisters in the first essay?

5. Who leaves a large inheritance to the author's mother?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does David's father obtain golf tees? Why does he collect them?

2. Describe what the title, "Next of Kin" refers to.

3. Describe the family's participation at church as detailed in "Chipped Beef."

4. What does David do in order to clear his name in "True Detective"?

5. What does David's father warn his children about, and how?

6. What changes David's father's mind about Ya Ya's being taken to a care facility? Where does he take her?

7. What does Lisa complain about in "Women's Open"? How does her father react?

8. Why does the author's mother leave behind a video for Lisa? What is on it?

9. How does "Next of Kin" become passed through the family? What finally happens to it?

10. What is David's father's obsession? Where does he take them in "Women's Open"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the overriding theme of "family." What essays imbue this theme? How?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the author's use of structure and motif in the essay "True Detective." Describe ways in which the author "sets up" the humor in this piece.

Essay Topic 3

Discuss Sedaris' use of satire. How does satire apply to a memoir piece? How does the author's structure reflect this style?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 924 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample